Everest pedal explores thin air

Health - Cath Harris | 17 Feb 11. A trek to Everest base camp is helping Oxford University researchers investigate the links between heart failure and the low oxygen levels suffered by patients with a range of serious diseases. Dr Cameron Holloway, Dr Nick Knight and Dr Andrew Murray from Oxford University's Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research were among several hundred volunteer hikers walking to the foot of Mount Everest to study the body's response to the thin air. The team wanted to simulate the condition of hypoxia - when the body or part of the body is deprived of sufficient oxygen. Patients with pneumonia, smoking-related diseases and some forms of heart failure suffer hypoxia. It was Dr Holloway's first experience of such a severe climate and he was startled by some of the findings. Among the most significant were changes to blood oxygen levels and energy synthesis.